Samueli, overcome with emotion, thanked U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney on Wednesday. His wife, Susan, sat in the courtroom gallery, tears in her eyes.

Hours earlier, the billionaire who also owns the Anaheim Ducks explained to jurors he felt pressured by the government to admit he lied to the Securities and Exchange Commission in May 2007, when he said he wasn't involved in the company's options-granting process.

Samueli, an alleged co-conspirator in the options backdating case, said he feared being indicted on the more serious criminal accounting-fraud charges faced by Broadcom's other co-founder, Henry T. Nicholas III, and William J. Ruehle, the company's former chief financial officer.

"I made that false statement and I accept it, but I bang myself in the head for making it,'' he said.

Carney, though, didn't see the statement as a lie – or a crime.

"I've listened to your testimony, and you didn't make a false material statement,' the judge said. "I can envision that this actually is a very truthful response ..."

On his way out of the courtroom, Samueli hugged Ruehle, who now poses the same question of criminal intentto the judge.

Ruehle, who is accused of engaging in an options-backdating scheme that inflated Broadcom's earnings by $2.2 billion, from which he is accused of personally profiting $77 million, wants Carney to throw out his case, too. A hearing will be held Tuesday.

Carney has said he wants to figure out if there is enough evidence to indicate that Ruehle knew what he was doing was wrong.

Ruehle's defense attorney, Richard Marmaro, has said that his client wasn't aware he might have been doing something illegal.

"Bill Ruehle never defrauded anyone ... one thing he did was work hard, work hard to increase shareholder value,'' Marmaro said.

He said Broadcom was one of more than 200 companies "tripped up" by now-defunct accounting guidelines.

"This case is about an unintentional misapplication of the rules,'' he later added.

Options backdating itself – granting company stock options to employees after their effective date – is not illegal, but must be reported to shareholders.

During the trial, Marmaro also cited other executives investigated for options-backdating at their companies, including Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

After dismissing Samueli's plea, the judge voicedthe same doubts expressed by Marmaro.

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